Fazlur Rahman Khan is from Bangladesh, village of Bhandarikandi in Shibchar Upazila, Madaripur District, Dhaka Division. He was born on 3 April 1929, in Dhaka. His father, Khan Bahadur Abdur Rahman Khan, BES was ADPI of Bengal and after retirement served as Principal of Jagannath College, Dhaka.

Career

In 1955, employed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, he began working in Chicago, Illinois. During the 1960s and 1970s, he became noted for his designs for Chicago's 100-story John Hancock Center and 110-story Sears Tower, the tallest building in the world in its time and still the tallest in the United States since its completion in 1974. He is also responsible for designing notable buildings in Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia. Fazlur Khan's personal papers, the majority of which were found in his office at the time of his death, are held by the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago. The Fazlur Khan Collection includes manuscripts, sketches, audio cassette tapes, slides and other materials regarding his work.

Personal interests

Outside of work, Khan enjoyed spending time with his family (wife Liselotte and daughter Yasmin). He enjoyed singing, poetry, and table tennis. He was also heavily involved with creating public opinion and garnering emergency funding for Bengali people during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. He created the Chicago-based organization known as Bangladesh Emergency Welfare Appeal.

Innovations

Dr. Fazlur Khan realized that the rigid steel frame structure that had "dominated tall building design and construction so long was not the only system fitting for tall buildings", marking "the beginning of a new era of skyscraper revolution in terms of multiple structural systems."[5] Dr. Fazlur Khan's design innovations significantly improved the construction of high-rise buildings, enabling them to withstand enormous forces generated on these super structures. These new designs opened an economic door for contractors, engineers, architects, and investors, providing vast amounts of real estate space on minimal plots of land.

Framed tube

Since 1963, the new structural system of framed tubes became highly influential in skyscraper design and construction. Khan defined the framed tube structure as "a three dimensional space structure composed of three, four, or possibly more frames, braced frames, or shear walls, joined at or near their edges to form a vertical tube-like structural system capable of resisting lateral forces in any direction by cantilevering from the foundation."[8] Closely spaced interconnected exterior columns form the tube. Horizontal loads, for example from wind and earthquakes, are supported by the structure as a whole. About half the exterior surface is available for windows. Framed tubes allow fewer interior columns, and so create more usable floor space. The bundled tube structure is more efficient for tall buildings, lessening the penalty for height. The structural system also allows the interior columns to be smaller and the core of the building to be free of braced frames or shear walls that use up valuable floor space. Where larger openings like garage doors are required, the tube frame must be interrupted, with transfer girders used to maintain structural integrity.[7] The first building to apply the tube-frame construction was the DeWitt-Chestnut Apartments building that Khan designed and was completed in Chicago in 1963.[9] This laid the foundations for the framed tube structure used in the construction of the World Trade Center.

Khan pioneered several other variations of the tube structure design. One of these was the concept of X-bracing, or the "trussed tube", first employed for the John Hancock Center. This concept reduced the lateral load on the building by transferring the load into the exterior columns. This allows for a reduced need for interior columns thus creating more floor space. This concept can be seen in the John Hancock Center, designed in 1965 and completed in 1969. One of the most famous buildings of the structural expressionist style, the skyscraper's distinctive X-bracing exterior is actually a hint that the structure's skin is indeed part of its 'tubular system'. This idea is one of the architectural techniques the building used to climb to record heights (the tubular system is essentially the spine that helps the building stand upright during wind and earthquake loads). This X-bracing allows for both higher performance from tall structures and the ability to open up the inside floorplan (and usable floor space) if the architect desires. Original features such as the skin, pioneered by Fazlur Khan, have made the John Hancock Center an architectural icon.[7][12] In contrast to earlier steel-frame structures, such as the Empire State Building (1931), which required about 206 kilograms of steel per square metre and Chase Manhattan Bank Building (1961), which required around 275 kilograms of steel per square metre, the John Hancock Center was far more efficient, requiring only 145 kilograms of steel per square metre.[9] The trussed tube concept was applied to many later skyscrapers, including the Onterie Center, Citigroup Center and Bank of China Tower[disambiguation needed].

Sears Tower (now Willis Tower), designed by Bruce Graham and Fazlur Khan[13] and completed in 1974, was the tallest building in the world at the time of its construction

Bundle tube

One of Khan's most important variations of the tube structure concept was the "bundled tube," which he used for the Sears Tower and One Magnificent Mile. The bundle tube design was not only the most efficient in economic terms, but it was also "innovative in its potential for versatile formulation of architectural space. Efficient towers no longer had to be box-like; the tube-units could take on various shapes and could be bundled together in different sorts of groupings."[12][14]

Concrete tube structures

The last major buildings engineered by Khan were the One Magnificent Mile and Onterie Center in Chicago, which employed his bundled tube and trussed tube system designs respectively. In contrast to his earlier buildings, which were mainly steel, his last two buildings were concrete. His earlier DeWitt-Chestnut Apartments building, built in 1963 in Chicago, was also a concrete building with a tube structure.[7]

Khan invented a new way of building tall. [...] So Fazlur Khan created the unconventional skyscraper. Reversing the logic of the steel frame, he decided that the building's external envelope could – given enough trussing, framing and bracing – be the structure itself. This made buildings even lighter. The "bundled tube" meant buildings no longer need be boxlike in appearance: they could become sculpture. Khan's amazing insight – he was name-checked by Obama in his Cairo University speech last year – changed both the economics and the morphology of supertall buildings. And it made Burj Khalifa possible: proportionately, Burj employs perhaps half the steel that conservatively supports the Empire State Building. [...] Burj Khalifa is the ultimate expression of his audacious, lightweight design philosophy.[15]

Professional milestones

In 1961, was made a Participating Associate in Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (now participating in Kuwait for Al-Hamra Tower); in 1966 he became an Associate Partner and in 1970 a General Partner - the only engineer partner at the time.

Received an Alumni Honor Dada from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (1972), an Honorary Doctor of Science from Northwestern University (1973), and an Honorary Doctor of Engineering from Lehigh University (1980).

In 1983 the American Institute of Architects recognized Fazlur Khan's contributions with an AIA Institute Honor for Distinguished Achievement. The same year he was honored with the Aga Khan Award for Architecture "for the Structure of the Hajj Terminal, An Outstanding Contribution to Architecture for Muslims," which was completed over the last years of his life.

He was honored posthumously by the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois with the John Parmer Award in 1987 and with the commissioning of a sculpture by the Spanish artist Carlos Marinas, which is located in the lobby of the Sears Tower.

In 1998 the city of Chicago named the intersection of Jackson and Franklin Streets (at the foot of the Sears Tower) "Fazlur R. Khan Way."

Made contributions in creating public opinion and amassing emergency fund for the people of Bangladesh during its War of Liberation. The Government of Bangladesh posthumously awarded him the Independence Day Medal, the country's highest state honour, in 1999 in recognition of his contributions, and a commemorative postal stamp was published in his memory.

He was honored posthumously by The Bangladeshi-American Foundation, Inc. (BAFI) in May 2005 as the most famous Bangladeshi-American of the 20th Century.

List of buildings

Some the most famous buildings Khan was responsible for performing as structural engineer include the following:

Other honors

Among Khan's other accomplishments, he received the Wason Medal (1971) and Alfred Lindau Award (1973) from the American Concrete Institute (ACI); the Thomas Middlebrooks Award (1972) and the Ernest Howard Award (1977) from ASCE; the Kimbrough Medal (1973) from the American Institute of Steel Construction; the Oscar Faber medal (1973) from the Institution of Structural Engineers, London; the International Award of Merit in Structural Engineering (1983) from the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering IABSE; the AIA Institute Honor for Distinguished Achievement (1983) from the American Institute of Architects; and the John Parmer Award (1987) from Structural Engineers Association of Illinois (Engineering Legends, Richard Weingardt).

__._,_.___

[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.] To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com

Churchill's Asian spy princess comes out of the shadows

Britain's Asian spy Noor Inayat Khan was shot by the Nazis in 1944 after being betrayed

"Liberte!" - That was the last word spoken by the heroine of Churchill's elite spy network before being executed by her Nazi captors. On 13 September 1944, the glamorous British agent, code named "Madeline," was shot dead at Dachau concentration camp.

Despite being tortured by the Gestapo during 10 months of imprisonment, she had revealed nothing of use to her interrogators. Noor Inayat Khan, died aged just 30, but her story has gone down in history. She was an incredibly brave woman and I think it is important that her bravery is permanently recognised in this country"

She joined Winston Churchill's sabotage force, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), and became the first female radio operator sent into France in 1943, with the famous instruction to "set Europe ablaze".The role was so dangerous that she arrived in Paris with a life expectancy of just six weeks.

Gestapo arrests

Noor became the last essential link with London after mass arrests by the Gestapo had destroyed the SOE's spy network in Paris.

As her spy circuit collapsed, her commanders urged her to return, but she refused to abandon what had become the principal and most dangerous post in France because she did not want to leave her French comrades without communications.For three months, she single-handedly ran a cell of spies across Paris, frequently changing her appearance and alias until she was eventually captured.

Despite having a full description of her and deploying considerable forces in their effort to break the last remaining link with London, it was only her betrayal by a French woman that led to Noor's capture by the Gestapo.

Noor's decision to stay in Paris to fight Nazism was a decision that cost her her life.Despite carrying a passport of an imperial subject she had no innate loyalty to Britain.

Winston Churchill sent SOE agents to France in 1943 with the instruction to "set Europe ablaze"

Born in Moscow to an Indian father and an American mother, she was a direct descendant of Tipu Sultan, the renowned Tiger of Mysore, who refused to submit to British rule and was killed in battle in 1799.

Her father was a Sufi Muslim who moved his family first to London and then to Paris, where Noor was educated.But when war broke out in 1939, Noor and one of her brothers, Vilayat, decided they had to travel to London, dedicating themselves against what they saw as the evil of Nazi Germany.

Her fluent French, quiet dedication and training in radio transmitting were quickly spotted by SOE officers.

Highest sacrifice

Noor's bravery has long been recognised in France, where there are two memorials and a ceremony held each year to mark her death.However, in Britain, although Noor was posthumously awarded the George Cross in 1949, her courage has since been allowed to fade in history.

That is about to change with the launch of a campaign to raise £100,000 to install a bronze bust of her in London, close to her former home.It would be the first memorial in Britain to either a Muslim or an Asian woman.

Shrabani Basu, who spent eight years researching Noor's history in official archives and family records, said: "I feel it is very important that what she did should not be allowed to fade from memory.''Noor died for this country. She made the highest sacrifice. She didn't need to do it. She felt it was a crime to stand back.

''She was an incredibly brave woman and I think it is important that her bravery is permanently recognised in this country.''

The project, which has the backing of 34 MPs and prominent British Asians, including human rights campaigner Shami Chakrabarti and film director Gurinder Chadha, is being led by Noor's biographer, Shrabani Basu who wrote The Spy Princess in 2006.

Around £25,000 of the cost of the bust has been raised and permission granted to install the sculpture on land owned by the University of London in Gordon Square, close to the Bloomsbury house where Noor lived as a child in 1914, and where she returned while training for the SOE during World War II.

The memorial is scheduled to be completed and installed by early 2012.

Should the mass-murderers of 1971 in Bangladesh be brought down to offer public apologies in the like manner? Their descendants should take note of this news item and contemplate the consequences. The impunity they have enjoyed so far may not last through generations!

Farida Majid

Sent: Mon, January 3, 2011 10:07:18 PMSubject: Decendant of the First English Slave Trader Asks for Forgiveness

i expected while living in USA , your horizon would improve and you will gradually get rid of

Bangladeshi garbage, that we all carry overseas.

Condemning ' bihari killing ' has nothing to do with ' killing of innocent Bengalis".

have we asked for accountability, from politicians...." why the trial of razakar"....has not been over in the past many years?

Crime has nothing to do with numbers. How many biharis we have killed , is not important. If we would have accepted

that shameful-fact, we would not have killed Bangladeshis PUBLICLY, today.

People who did not condemn killing of biharis, grabbing properties of Biharis....are today killing fellow-Bengalis...on the street

....in front of camera, without fear or shame.

What kind of in-efficiency, violence and corruption we practise in Bangladesh now?

who has created DHAKA, the new... big slum, in the world map?

If you are truly a freedom-fighter, you should get rid of that dirty habit....naming people, who do not agree with you, who

might have different opinion.

Learn again, how to practise democracy/ How to discuss issues without violence and how to respect other people's

opinion/

Best wishes.

khoda hafez.

To: alochona@yahoogroups.comFrom: drmohsinali@yahoo.comDate: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 06:47:16 -0800Subject: [ALOCHONA] Liberation of Mymensingh, 1971--why we can not condemn all killing and make distinction among various sections of people even with regard to basic humanity

This is a fake story.

Biharis along with Pakistani Army and Bangali Razakars killed millions of inncoent Bangalees and raped thousands of Bangalee women and looted and burned billions of dollars of Bangalee properties. There might be some isolated incidents of Bihari killing which was never a part of our Freedom Fight agenda. Some individuals might have done some isolated killing of Biharis for their personal interest which we always condemned. Freedom Fighters did not kill any innocent people whether they were Biharis, Pakistanis, Bangalees, even the innocent members of the notorious Razakar-Al Badar families.

This is the propaganda of the ISI Bangalee agents who never wanted independent Bangladesh and still they don't accept independent Bangladesh. They are still riding on the Pakistani Ghost.

Dr. Mohsin Ali, New York

Commander of Freedom Fighters

Gurudaspur

Natore.

--- On Tue, 1/11/11, S A Hannah <sahannan@sonarbangladesh.com> wrote:

From: S A Hannah <sahannan@sonarbangladesh.com>Subject: RE: [ALOCHONA] Liberation of Mymensingh, 1971--why we can not condemn all killing and make distinction among various sections of people even with regard to basic humanity [1 Attachment]To: alochona@yahoogroups.comDate: Tuesday, January 11, 2011, 1:17 AM

We can not condemn Bihar killing because of one sided propaganda. Please read the other side of the story.

Liberation of MymensinghThe nine-month liberation war of Bangladesh started on 27 March 1971 as people started to fight against Pakistani forces at EPR Camp (in mymensingh) killing all the Pakistani soldiers, Mymensingh remained free from occupation army till 23 April 1971. Despite the genocide in Dhaka on 25 March 1971, Mymensingh remained calm except for killing of Biharis. On 17 April PAF aircraft bombed and strafed innocent people at Shambhuganj gudaraghat which sparked violence and killing continues for seven days of Beharis in different Behari camps in Mymensing town killing about 30,000 Biharies. The killing of Biharis (in Mymensingh) is a dark spot in Bangladesh history. The senseless killing of All Bihari men and young adults took place in Sanki pAra Behari coloni. All the Biharis were slaughtered on those fateful nights. Fight against Pakistani forces was conducted by freedom fighters who were trained in camps in Dalu and Meghalaya across the northern border. Mymensingh became free as the Pakistani occupation forces deserted Mymensing on 10 December, and Mukti Bahini took over on 11 December, just five days ahead of the victory of Dhaka on 16 December.

__._,_.___

[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.] To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com

Ali Mir and Raza Mir grew up in Hyderabad on a steady diet of progressive Urdu poetry. They divide their time between India and US, and earn their living as university professors.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz's internationalist vision was based on working-class movements and the struggles of colonised peoples everywhere.

In March 1955, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, still imprisoned in Rawalpindi's Montgomery Jail where he had been interred since 1951 for 'seditious activities,' wrote Aa Jaao Africa (Come, Africa), a poem based on a phrase he had heard as a rallying cry among African anti-colonial rebels:

Come, that I have heard the sounds of your drumCome that my blood flows to its rhythmCome, Africa.Come, for I have raised my forehead from the dustScraped away the hide of grief from my eyesBroken away from the grip of painTorn away the web of helplessnessCome, Africa!The earth's heart beats with mine, AfricaThe river dances while the moon keeps timeI am Africa, for I have taken on your formI am you, and my gait is your lion-walk.Come, AfricaCome with a lion-walkCome, Africa!

We always felt intrigued by the poem, not least because it troubled us. While Faiz's solidarity with Africa was obvious in the lines, the image of the continent was primal, wild, invoking jungles and wild animals. Our latter-day sensibilities could not reconcile Faiz's obvious commitment to international humanism with the image he obviously harboured of Africans as primal beings. It was much later that we learned that far from invoking racialised stereotypes, Faiz's imagery had been inspired by the poetic aesthetics developed by writers and intellectuals of the Negritude movement, which sought to reclaim the metaphors of blackness in the service of an international solidarity amongst people of colour. Faiz's friendship with African poets such as Aimé Césaire of Martinique must have led him to adopt these metaphors, which he then brought to the Subcontinent. Ultimately, other Urdu poets like Ali Sardar Jafri would use similar imagery in their poems celebrating black revolutionaries across the world.

The story of Aa Jaao Africa in many ways frames Faiz's role as someone who helped the progressive aesthetic of Urdu poetry add an internationalist ethos. His travels across the world in the 1950s and 1960s brought Faiz to far more interesting places than the standard sojourn to the island of Vilayat by his peers. He developed relationships with a variety of peers, who in their poems wrote of the oppressed in their lands: the Chilean Pablo Neruda, Langston Hughes of the Harlem Renaissance, and Nazim Hikmet of Turkey (whose work he translated into Urdu). Also, while leftists across the Subcontinent were well aware of Soviet poets like Mayakovski; their exposure was limited to Russians who wrote in a European style. Thanks to Faiz, we have Urdu translations from the 'lesser Soviets' such as Kazakhstan's Olzhas Suleimenov, or Daghestan's Rasul Gamzatov.

At odds with the stateFaiz was an internationalist partly by inclination, and partly out of circumstance. His relationship with the nation-state was doomed on 15 August 1947, with the partition of the country. The promised independence arrived, but its crimson hue was not that of the awaited socialist 'red dawn' but came from the blood of the dead of Partition violence. Faiz's poem Subh-e Aazadi (The dawn of freedom) was an anthem for the defeat of progressive politics at the moment of decolonisation. Ye dagh dagh ujaala, ye shab-gazeeda sahar (This pock-marked light, this night-inflected morning), carried the voice of all progressives regarding the catastrophe of partition. The poem ended with the call to continue the unfinished journey:

Don't be fooled, the abatement of the darkness is not here yetThe deliverance of the eye and the heart is not here yetKeep moving, for the awaited destination is not here yet.

Faiz's relationship with the nation-state was rendered even more contingent when he was arrested in 1951 by the Ayub Khan regime in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case. The charges of working to overthrow the government led to a longish prison stint, and incidentally laid the foundation for the banning of the Communist Party of Pakistan and its various fronts in 1954. Faiz's poems during those days, collected in his book Zindan-naama (Letters from Prison) perhaps reflect his best work:

I sacrifice myself to your lanes, my countryWhere it has been decreed that none should walk with head held high.

It was here that he developed his trademark poetic metaphors, where the qafas (cage) encloses the prisoner, who then depends on the breeze (saba) to get news of the homeland. As the two poem snippets below show, Faiz's poetry seemed to enter a reflective state, combining the passion of classic love poetry with revolutionary idiom, which is what makes him unique among the progressives.

The cage may be in your power, but you do not controlThe season of the flowering of the bright roseAnd so what if we do not see it? For the ones following us will witnessThe brightness of the garden, the singing of the nightingale

Citizen of the worldWhile Faiz's poems are a vibrant example of the internationalist ethos of progressive Urdu poetry, the internationalism itself is not really exceptional. The internationalist commitment of the progressive movement was apparent since its very beginning. The anti-fascist struggles of European literary figures had enthused the Progressives, and one of the first activities of the newly formed Progressive Writers' Association (PWA), in 1935, was to send Sajjad Zaheer and Mulk Raj Anand as their representatives to London to participate in the conference of 'International Writers for the Defense of Culture'.

Poets like Mohammad Iqbal had been expanding the horizons of Urdu literature's engagement with the world for a while. The PWA poets besides Faiz, however, took the internationalism to new levels. The Association had come into being at a time when the freedom movement was at its height, and the initial writings of its members were focused on the struggle against British occupation. Overtures to internationalism took two forms: an interrogation and critique of colonialism and its related issues (the Second World War, for instance), and an expression of admiration for the Soviet revolution accompanied by a hope that India's freedom would result in a similar socialist society.

The emergence of the Non-Aligned Movement at Bandung, Indonesia in 1955 (the year of the writing of Aa Jaao Africa), concretised the idea of Third World solidarity, and provided another arena of expression for progressive poetry. Sahir wrote several poems in appreciation of Lenin, Makhdoom wrote moving elegies to Patrice Lumumba and Martin Luther King, Ali Sardar Jafri composed odes to Paul Robeson, and Kaifi Azmi wrote poems critiquing the US involvement in Vietnam. The cultural exchange fostered by the Non-Aligned and Afro-Asian movements led to the translation of many of Faiz's poems into Swahili, Chinese and Vietnamese, while the works of progressive poets from around the world were translated into Urdu.

This period of Third World solidarity saw the Progressives composing poems on issues such as the struggles of Iranian students in 1959, the McCarthy era of repression of dissent in the United States, the European student uprisings in the 1960s, the Algerian freedom movement, the Palestinian struggle and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. Faiz weighed in on a variety of global debates of the time, but with a lyricism that was unmatched. When Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in 1953 by the US government on the charge of being Soviet spies, Faiz was inspired to write a poem. But rather than write it as a protest against the injustice, he framed it as a lyrical tribute to their love, as they stubbornly refused to betray each other despite inducements, threats, incarceration, and ultimately, execution. His tribute is heartbreakingly titled Hum jo tareek raahon mein maare gaye (We who were executed on dark highways). Here is an excerpt:

In the desire for the flowers that were your lipsWe were sacrificed on the dry branch of the scaffoldIn the yearning for the light of your handsWe were killed in the darkening streets...As the evening of tyranny dissolved in your memoryWe walked on as far as our feet could carry usA song on our lips, a lamp of sadness in our heartOur grief bore witness to our love for your beautyLook, we remained true to that loveWe, who were executed in the dark lanes.

Faiz's travels resumed when he went into self-exile in Lebanon during the dictatorship of Zia-ul-Haq. It was in Beirut that he wrote several poems on the Middle East conflict: a piece on Beirut itself (Ishq Apne Mujrimoñ Ko Pabajaulaañ Le Chala / Love Leads its Prisoners Away in Chains), an anthem for Palestinian freedom-fighters (Ek Taraana Filastini Mujaahidoñ Ke Naam / An Anthem for Palestinian Revolutionaries), a dirge for the Palestinian dead (Filastini Shohada Jo Pardes Meiñ Kaam Aaye / Palestinian Martyrs Who Died Abroad), and perhaps the most famous, a lullaby to a Palestinian orphan (Mat Ro Bachche / Weep Not, Child). Faiz dedicated his book Mere Dil, Mere Musaafir (My Heart, My Wanderer) to the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. But the great sensitivity of Faiz was to relate the Palestinian condition back to Southasia, using the victory of Israel as a metaphor for the victory of capitalist elites in India and Pakistan, often in collusion with religious elites. Following the defeat of the Arab forces in the June 1967 war, his Sar-e Vaadi-e Seena (Atop the Sinai Valley) was, among other things, a scathing indictment of the hypocrisy of elitist Islamists. The poem exhorts people to cast off the chains of theocratic exploitation:

Yet again, lightning shimmers atop the Sinai valleyO seeing eyeAsk the hearts to line up againThat between you and me, a new promise may descendFor now, the elite of the earth have decreed Tyranny to be normalAnd the mufti has pronounced Oppression worth obeyingTo break this centuries-old cycle of acquiescenceA new proclamation must descend, the proclamation of dissent

Some of Faiz's contemporaries were even more direct. Using a similar metaphor, but with far great irony, Habib Jalib taunted Zia-ul-Huq in a poem that set the tone for the critique of the regime that chose to deploy Islam as a tool of ensuring domestic acquiescence, but was slow to take on Israeli imperialism for fear of angering the US:

If you must save Islam, go where it is in dangerWhy darken our doors, go to LebanonAnd when we ask for permission to go to BeirutOur rulers instead send us to the dungeons.

Ultimately, Faiz's internationalist vision, and indeed, that of the other PWA poets like Faiz, Majaz, Makhdoom, Kaifi and others, came directly out of the politics and the general sensibility of the time. The realities of colonialism, and later neocolonialism/neo-imperialism, both required and provided a global frame of reference and a basis for shared political engagement with other colonised and/or oppressed peoples. Internationalism in this period, however, was not homogeneous; the internationalism of Faiz and the Progressives, for example, was a far cry from the pan-Islamism of Iqbal and his followers. While Iqbal was motivated more by the need to find common heritage across Muslims of the world, Faiz's understanding was informed more by an understanding of the shared material conditions of oppression and struggle and was inspired by the international working-class movements and the struggles of colonised peoples across the world. For them, internationalism meant a common struggle against imperialism and for a new world order

------------------------------------

[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.comYahoo! Groups Links